BTX - here it comes!

It should not have escaped the notice of any self respecting hardware geek that ATX is kind of getting long in the tooth. The future is BTX, a technology which we have been hearing about for some time, but sighting less. Intel has been promoting the specification for some time, but only a small number of PC vendors have adopted the format.

All that is maybe about to change. This week, the chip giant is rolling out its first two retail BTX motherboards. It also expects its industry partners to come out with suitable BTX cases to take the motherboards. The new motherboards will come in two flavours - the Digital Home (model BOXD915GMHLK) and the Digital Office (model BOXD915GMHL). Both are based on Intel's 915G chip set, which means of course that they are PCI Express happy.

Why do we want BTX (Balanced Technology Extended)? Well, according to Intel and other sources, it will make for cooler, quieter, and more efficient PCs of all sizes. Design boffins have really sat down and thought about airflow, heat and all sorts of other issues to produce a form factor that is just quite frankly more sensible. So, look out everyone, here comes BTX!